The year is 1965. The air is thick with American ambition, but filtered through a distinctly British lens. The Rolling Stones, just a few short years out of the London club circuit, are already a global phenomenon, primarily thanks to their own compositions like the just-released, era-defining fuzz of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Yet, for every groundbreaking original they dropped, there was a solemn, reverent look back—a check-in with the masters who defined the sound they were so voraciously channeling.
This is the cultural moment that births their take on Roosevelt Jamison’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is.” It lands squarely in the middle of their US album, Out of Our Heads, an artifact of duality, housing both the nascent genius of the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership and the band’s enduring, essential tribute to the American rhythm and blues canon. The track itself, a soulful love ballad first recorded by O. V. Wright and famously covered by Otis Redding in the same year, is an audacious choice. The song is an emotional Everest, a test of any singer’s raw sincerity.
Their producer and manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, was at the helm, directing the band’s rapid-fire early career with a blend of hype and musical acumen. These early studio efforts, captured predominantly in London and often during brief, frenetic sessions in the US—notably at the legendary Chess Studios—were less about pristine fidelity and more about capturing a raw, live energy. The sound is close-mic’d, slightly boxy, and perfectly imperfect, a sonic snapshot of a band finding its way through the echo chamber of their influences.
The Stone’s particular reading of this magnificent piece of music operates in a lower register than Otis Redding’s iconic Stax version. It’s less gospel-tinged, more grounded in a smoky, late-night grit. The arrangement is deceptively simple, creating space for the emotional core to breathe. Charlie Watts’ drumming is a masterclass in tasteful restraint—soft press rolls and brushed snare hits that move the rhythm forward without ever intruding on the song’s melancholic mood.
The foundation is built on the interaction between Bill Wyman’s bass and Ian Stewart’s piano. Wyman’s bassline is not flashy, but an essential, deep throb, anchoring the song in a dark, resonant pocket. Stewart, the uncredited sixth Stone, lays down a steady, slightly honky-tonk pulse on the piano that gives the track its church-meeting, call-and-response atmosphere. It’s an understated soulfulness, the kind of subtle but essential layer that often gets lost when fans are learning new material or purchasing sheet music.
Then there is the twin guitar attack, characteristic of the Stones’ mid-sixties sound. Keith Richards handles a clean, ringing chordal rhythm, a steady hand providing the harmonic color. Brian Jones, the band’s original musical polymath, layers in a bright, sharp counterpoint. His lines are often brief, textural interjections—a stinging tremolo here, a slightly warped slide or bent note there. They never dominate, but instead wrap themselves around the vocal, adding a high-end shimmer that contrasts beautifully with the low-slung rhythm section. This textural work is where the Stones often differentiated their R&B covers, injecting a psychedelic melancholy into the core blues structure.
Mick Jagger’s vocal performance, however, is the true narrative engine. This is Mick before the full strut, Mick at the cusp of becoming the swaggering icon. Here, he sounds vulnerable, exposed. His delivery is high in the mix, a little shaky in its sincerity, devoid of the irony he would often deploy in later years. When he sings, “If I was the sun way up there / I’d go with love most everywhere,” his phrasing is direct, almost pleading.
The power of this particular version lies in its sense of yearning—a British band trying to fully inhabit the deep soul of America, and nearly succeeding through sheer reverence. They are not trying to be Otis Redding; they are simply offering their devotion to a song they love. This humble, hardworking fidelity to the source material is what makes the track resonate fifty years later.
For many of us, this era of the Stones represents a crossroads. It’s the sound of white-boy blues evolving into capital-R Rock, the moment before the original compositions decisively took over the track lists. Listening to this song on a high-quality home audio system today, the clarity reveals the subtle sonic decisions—the gentle reverb on Mick’s voice, the dry snap of the snare, the deep, warm vibration of the bass. It’s a testament to the skill of the session engineers that they captured this rawness.
This cover is a quiet act of cultural translation. It brought the emotional landscape of deep American soul to a broader, global rock audience who might have otherwise missed the genius of Roosevelt Jamison or O.V. Wright. It’s a moment of restraint, of letting the song’s inherent strength do the heavy lifting.
“There is a deep respect in this restraint, a quiet acknowledgment of the giants whose shoulders they stood upon.”
This moment of quiet sincerity makes the whole arrangement work. It’s the band stepping back from their rock and roll posture and simply serving the song, allowing the lyrical images—the weeping willow, the ocean deep and wide—to take root. It’s a bluesy, soulful masterclass in under-promising and over-delivering, a necessary counterweight to the brash, revolutionary single that shares its same release cycle. It is the proof that, even as they were forging their own defiant path, The Rolling Stones were students of the highest order.
The emotional arc of the song mirrors a quiet resolution. You don’t need pyrotechnics to convey profound commitment; sometimes, you just need a soulful plea backed by a tight, sympathetic band. It’s a song for the close of a long day, a piece of music to spin when the lights are low and the emotional stakes are high. It’s a track that rewards the devoted listener and remains a powerful argument for the Stones’ mastery of the soul ballad form.
Listening Recommendations
- Otis Redding – “That’s How Strong My Love Is” (1965): The definitive, more joyous and spiritually soaring rendition to compare the Stones’ grit against.
- The Animals – “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (1965): Shares the same mid-sixties UK R&B intensity and features an equally powerful, yearning vocal performance.
- The Beatles – “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” (1965): A contemporary track showcasing another British Invasion band dipping into an acoustic, emotionally vulnerable ballad style.
- Solomon Burke – “Cry to Me” (1962): A foundational soul ballad the Stones also covered on this album (US Out of Our Heads), sharing the same deep, vulnerable R&B DNA.
- Love – “Bummer in the Summer” (1967): Features a similar blend of acoustic-driven soul-rock with a slightly raw, introspective vocal delivery and textural guitar work.